For the Honour of Clan Tavish

He knew how to use his body to intimidate and that's precisely what he was doing now. Each subtle movement he made stated inarguably, "I am the one in control. I am allowing you to move."

He began by lifting one of his immense legs off the back of her thighs. She lay beneath him on her stomach, her body tense with aggravation and anger. She felt him begin to rise from their prone position on the floor and sought to follow, but made the mistake of moving up too quickly. As she scrambled to get on her hands and knees her back came into direct, hard contact with his chest. Although the force of contact made her oomph out loud, he emitted no sound. He didn't even budge. She chose to move slower, then, but only because he offered her no alternative.

Inch by inch she pushed herself up, going no faster than he would allow. When he stopped, she stopped as well. She avoided contact with his body but could feel the heat emanating off his flesh as he hovered over her. His arms encased her entire body. She could see his hands pressed next to hers on the ground. If she turned her head, she could easily bite his forearm. She was effectively trapped within his embrace though no part of her touched any part of him.

He kept her imprisoned there for several long seconds. Though she was panting from physical exertion due to their tussle, he breathed normally and silently. This annoyed her even more than she was already annoyed and made her all the more physically aware of him. Just when she thought he would never move, never allow her to leave his wicked embrace that was no embrace, he inched upright again and removed his arm from around her body.

He sat back on his knees which allowed her, in turn, to do the same. She dared not look at him. It was enough that she could feel him next to her all husky male and pent-up energy. They were so close they were practically touching. She could have attempted to move away, but knew that were she to do so, he would 'detain' her once again. She wisely waited instead.

"You'll not do that again," he said. His voice felt like a cool, silk sheet dragged across her naked flesh. It wasn't a question, it was a command; even she knew better than to argue with him at this point. Defiance is only admirable to a certain degree and she had definitely pushed him to his boiling point. Still, an ember of resentment glowed dangerously within. She wanted to strike out at him. She wanted to verbally lash him. She wanted to run as far away from him as she could, but knew that she would not. She had nowhere to run.

"Look at me," he commanded. She didn't have to look at him to know what she would see: Even kneeling he towered over her, every inch of him braw and bonny; he was the consummate Highlander.

He reached out with his hand and though the action startled her, she did not flinch. With his finger under her chin he turned her face the scant few inches required to face him. His gentle actions belied the tone of his voice and made her question, once again, how this giant of a man, who could roar and make any man look towards the afterlife with anticipation, could control his power in a touch so gentle it felt like a breeze playing upon her skin.

"Let me go, Aengus," she spoke softy.

Aengus was awed by the depth of emotion displayed in her eyes. This was a woman incapable of guile; every emotion she felt was reflected in her features for all to see and what he saw now pulled at his heart dangerously.

"You know that I cannae do that, lass," his brogue was thickened by unexpected emotion.

"You cannae, or you willnae?" she dared to ask him.

"Doona push me further," he warned, his eyes darkening perceptibly. For all his gentleness, she knew the power he possessed lay poised beneath the surface. She looked away, loathe to let him read her expression anymore.

"You will bed me again," It was a statement, not a question. She spoke with a tone of resignation that only made the ember of resentment glow dangerously within.

He did not answer with his voice he dared not risk any inflection that would reveal more than he was comfortable revealing. Instead, he took her hand and placed it flat against his chest.

Alannah closed her eyes at the feel of him beneath her fingertips. She curled her other hand into a fist at her side to keep herself from caressing him. "Aengus MacTavish, "she whispered furiously, "I shall hate you till the day I die."

"I'm counting on it, lass," he said softly, "I'm counting on it." Aengus spoke so quietly Alannah nearly missed his words as he simultaneously forced her palm down over his chest, lowering it across the smooth plane of his abdomen, lowering it until Alannah hung her head and bit her lip in consternation. And then her palm bumped against his cock, his turgid, pulsing shaft, that part of him that would play havoc not only with her body, but her mind, as well.

Aengus watched her hand slowly curl around his length and smiled a dissatisfied smile. He hated that she would not touch him of her own accord, but that did not stop him from forcing her to participate. Her hand looked incredibly small encompassing him the way it did. He knew he was a large man, but he looked even larger with this wee woman next to him with her wee hand holding him and making him feel as if he could spill himself at any moment.

He wouldn't, of course. He wouldn't waste his seed in a display of adolescence. He was a man of three and thirty; he'd learned long ago how to hang on to that thread of control, how to pleasure a woman until she howled his name so it echoed through the halls of the keep and beyond; he'd enjoyed every lesson.

But this wee woman, this woman with a figure so lush and full with her amply rounded curves in all the appropriate places, this woman forced him to the brink time and time again. He reached out and palmed her breast with one hand, forcing from her a gasp of pleasure. His cock pulsed in her palm at her involuntary inhalation and spewed forth a small droplet of clear fluid, fluid that would ease his entrance into her womb very, very soon.

Aengus MacTavish was not a handsome man by conventional standards. He was, however, respected as a fierce, Highland warrior. His hair was red and wild with two war braids plaited at either temple. His eyes were a rich, earthy brown, a color that complimented his fiery, red locks. His shoulders were expansive; they easily filled a doorway with their breadth. And though many feared him, few knew him for the gentle soul he was certainly not this woman in front of him. To her, he was nothing but a tormentor and rapist, the man who had abducted her from her ancestral home as part of plot for revenge for the murder of his brother, Ewan. It gnawed at him that he could do nothing but exact his revenge, then set her free whilst his bastard grew in her belly. But his oath was given, and no matter how difficult, how gut-wrenchingly painful it was to be something he was not, he would fulfill his duty to Clan Tavish and be done with it.

He only hoped he could so easily be done with the haunting image of this woman writhing beneath him.

He knew he brought her pleasure, occasionally. He knew it in the way she bit her lip to stifle a moan, or the way her body trembled and the muscles of her inner-most femininity clenched around his cock in hated climax. It had been three weeks since her abduction. Three weeks he'd kept her locked in his room. Three weeks he'd fucked her till they both were raw. By the end of the fourth he would set her free, confident his seed would be planted in her once-virginal womb.

It was the reminder of his oath and what he must do that brought Aengus back to the present. Alannah Douglass. Her name meant "peaceful and serene" in their native tongue; she looked anything but at the moment. Her body trembled tellingly as he palmed the cool tip of her puckered nipple. Her hand stilled on his cock as he rolled her nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger. He watched the play of emotion flitter across her features: first pleasure, followed by something he could only assume was guilt. He tweaked her nipple harder, wanting to wipe anything but desire and longing for him from her face. She looked at him askance, her small hand still wrapped around his cock.

"What do you want of me MacTavish? You have already taken what I did not freely give you. Is that not enough?"

Aengus' eyes darkened at her words. He did not like what he had to do any better than she, but he would do it; his honor required it. His gut twisted at the thought that though he avenged his brother's death, in the process he was becoming deadened by revenge. He had no answer for her softly-voiced question, so instead he dipped his head and took her lips in a kiss he hoped would speak for him.

He molded his mouth to her warm and pliant lips and suckled gently until Alannah gasped in astonishment. He had stolen her from her home; he had stolen her virtue; he had even stolen her pleasure, wringing it from her no matter how hard she resisted, but he had never, before now, stolen a kiss.

Alannah was awash with emotion she felt incapable of handling. His anger and quest for revenge she could take, it made him much easier to hate. This man had raped her, had abused her in the worst way possible and yet she felt from him a tenderness that was more dangerous than anything else she'd experienced at his hands. Did he want her complete surrender? Would he not leave her one scrap of dignity? Or would he strip her as emotionally bare as he had stripped her physically bare?

Alannah brought her hands between them and pushed against his chest while opening her mouth. She intended to scathe him with her tongue –her last defense– but Aengus sensed her withdrawal and moved quickly. He gripped her upper arms in his hands and held her close to his body while his tongue took advantage of her opened mouth to plunder its depths. Alannah felt her control slipping as his tongue parried and thrust with acute precision, wearing down her defenses until she felt herself wanting to surrender to his expert touch. Instead, she curled her hands into fists and refused to acknowledge the feel of his muscular body beneath her fingertips.

Aengus was losing himself, of this he was certain. He'd bargained his soul for revenge and started to loathe himself because of it. Where was the honor in this? He yearned to hear her whimper; he ached to feel her yield to him willingly, to encourage him with the barest touch of her hands on his body that was not forced. She had the power to redeem him, and Aengus very much wanted that redemption.

With a tug on her shoulders Aengus pulled Alannah to him and tumbled to the floor, cushioning her fall with his body. She lay on top of him now, every inch or her body pressed intimately to his. Alannah tried to hold herself stiff and unresponsive but the twin assault on her senses of his tongue in her mouth and his body beneath hers made her shiver tellingly. Aengus ended the kiss abruptly and looked up at her with hooded, chocolate-colored eyes.

"Tell me you dinnae want this, lass," he said, thrusting his pelvis upwards so she could fully feel the heat and length of his arousal against her naked body. "Tell me that I havenae brought you pleasure," he spoke in a low tone, his grip on her arms tightening in wordless supplication.

Alannah bit her lip to keep from answering him. How could she? To admit to her captor that she had felt more pleasure at his hand than any other would seal her fate: she would be lost in desire for him long after he returned her to her family. And yet there was something lingering at the corners of his deep, dark eyes. Something more humble than demand, as if he were asking her to set him free, not the other way around. But how could this be? He held her prisoner. She had nothing left to give him that he hadn't already taken ...or did she?

Aengus grew impatient both with Alannah and with himself for asking questions that she couldn't or wouldn't answer. He growled deep in his throat in frustration and rolled over onto his side, gently lowering Alannah to the ground atop his recently discarded plaid.

The growl he emitted was low and guttural, feral in its intensity. Alannah shivered perceptibly as Aengus leaned over her naked form, his eyes drinking her in completely. She wanted to cover herself with her hands, to hide her nakedness and vulnerability from this man, but she knew from experience that were she to do so, he would simply remove her hands and hold them above her head with one of his own so that he might peruse her body at his leisure. Alannah had no desire to be so incapacitated, so she held her hands stiffly against his chest where last they lay while he kissed her.

She watched him with eyes the color of moss on the forest floor, a color so pure it almost pained him to look into them. Her chest rose and fell in agitated breath and when he lifted his hand to brush a stray wisp of nut-colored hair from her brow, she flinched instinctively.

"Och, lass," she heard him whisper in a tone of reproach. And then she felt his lips touch her forehead, then her cheekbone, then trail down along the line of her jaw to the sensitive hollow beneath her ear. He moved so slowly and stealthily he slid beneath her defenses before she knew what he was about. His kisses made her limbs feel heavy and drugged, as if to move them would require too much energy. And hadn't she fought him long enough?

Aengus wrapped his hands around her wrists and slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders. He wanted access to her lovely, plump breasts without interference from her hands pushing him away as in times past. Although she was not responding positively to his kisses, she was not pushing him away, either. This night he wanted her to open to him, to meet him on equal footing instead of captive to captor.

Alannah felt Aengus' lips moving slowly down her body. She felt the rasp of his unshaven cheek as it nuzzled her neck and the top of her breast. She tightened immediately at the contact, but was quickly lulled into something akin to forgetfulness as Aengus nibbled her shoulder and suckled the skin near her collarbone. Beneath her palms his skin felt warm and smooth. She knew if she were to drag her palms downward, she would feel the hair on his chest tickling her palms. She would not do that, however; to do so would be to betray her vulnerability to this man, and wasn't she, after all, at war with him?

Alannah sucked in a startled gasp as Aengus laved the underside of one, pale breast with his tongue. I will not give in, I will not give in, she repeated the mantra in her mind while her body weakened imperceptibly under the sensual barrage of Aengus' tongue. She bit her lip and struggled for air as Aengus nipped and licked his way to one, pert nipple. She closed her eyes, fighting surrender, as his mouth closed over the tip and suckled hungrily, all the while his opposite hand trailed down her body to cup the pronounced swell of her hip. Alannah was fighting the feelings of pleasure coursing through her body so single-mindedly, she was unaware she had dug her fingers into Aengus' shoulders and held on as if he, and only he, could save her from herself.

Aengus couldn't help but feel her fingers digging into his shoulders. It sent a thrill of pleasure through him to think he'd somehow steeled himself past some of her barriers. Heaven knew the woman slid past his defenses constantly with her lush, woman's body and her quick, sharp tongue. He knew she was fighting him on some level, fighting herself, too. He wanted her to remain present in the moment, not hide away behind some façade that refused to acknowledge the pleasure he could bring her. He nipped her breast sharply and was rewarded with another gasp and a tightening of her fingers on his shoulders. Good, he thought. It's a start, wee one.

Encouraged by her actions –though her tense body belied the turmoil within- Aengus moved from one breast to the other by trailing kisses across the valley that separated them. He licked and nibbled the sensitive undersides. He teased with his breath and his whiskered cheek over her pale, sensitive skin. He kneaded the plump mound with his hand and held it up to receive the warm, possessive suckle from his tongue and mouth.

Sweet Jesu, Alannah thought, This isn't rape. This is ...seduction! She fought for control as the big, burly man continued to tease and titillate beyond that which her body could defend. She felt his tongue and lips move over her breasts as if dining on an incredible feast. She felt her nipples pucker in reaction and a dangerous warmth fill her nether regions. Just when she thought she'd not be able to take another kiss, another suckle from his warm, wet mouth, Aengus moved beyond her breasts to trail kisses down over her softly curving abdomen.

No! Alannah whimpered in her mind, then caught herself before she uttered the word. Although her breast felt bereft without the stimulation of his experienced tongue and mouth, she would not ask him to return, nor beg him not to leave. She became aware of the direction of his kisses belatedly, the mental battle she waged with herself distracting her from the seduction this man was playing out. Her body tensed and her knees clamped together tightly when she felt Aengus' hand slide tenderly up her inner thigh, dangerously close to the plump mound at the apex of her thighs. She knew he would touch her, would force her legs apart if need be. She clamped them shut not so much to stop him –for she knew she could not– but to stop the reaction her body was having to his touch.

Aengus felt her stiffen as he gently slid his hand up her thigh. He wanted to feel the dewy moistness between her legs. He wanted to feel that he did, indeed, affect this woman as she affected him. When she clamped her legs tightly closed he thrust his cock against the side of her leg, reminding her of what was to come. He glanced up over her naked body as she squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head to the side. Again he thrust his pelvis forward, leaving a trail of slick, wet fluid that announced his arousal upon her thigh. This garnered no response from Alannah, and in frustration Aengus did the only thing he could think of: He pried her legs apart and slid between them, his face mere inches above the sweet-smelling pussy he ached to fill with his cock.

Alannah's hands slipped from Aengus' shoulders as he moved into position between her legs. Now it will come, she thought. Now he will make me feels things I do not wish to feel, no matter how utterly-

Her thought was cut off mid-sentence as she felt his breath against that most secret part of her, the part he'd only previously ever violated with his cock. He couldn't mean to kiss her there, could he? Alannah squirmed and tried to slide out of his reach.

"Nay, lass," Aengus burred softly, his breath fanning out across her dampened, sensitized flesh. He grabbed her hips from underneath and pulled her closer, raising her pelvis slightly to his waiting mouth. Before Alannah could voice a protest she felt the first, tantalizing touch of Aengus' tongue against her most feminine flesh and cried out audibly at the contact.

Aengus smiled, pleased at her reaction. He gave her no time to settle into stoic acceptance; instead he attacked her senses with gentle laps of his tongue between the petal-soft lips of her pussy. She bucked beneath his mouth in surprise; Aengus smiled at her reaction. He held on tightly to her hips and descended once again to tease the hardened little nub at the apex of her femininity. It was more than Alannah knew how to fight against, more than her virginal body had ever experienced. She moaned loudly into the darkened chamber and threaded her hands wildly through the Highlander's hair. Aengus continued the assault, lapping at her juices and teasing her clit until she was pressing down on his head with her hands and raising her pelvis up to reach every expert thrust of his tongue. Aengus peered up over her body, his mouth sucking delicately at that most-sensitive bit of flesh only to find her deep green eyes locked with his, her face lit with surprise and pleasure and nothing else; no fear, no revulsion, nothing but acceptance and awe.